iGozen, an eco-friendly cleaner that pushes the sustainability envelope

02/18/2014 09:18 AM

02/18/2014 09:18 AM

iGozen, an eco-friendly cleaner that pushes the sustainability envelope

02/18/2014 09:18 AM

From Green Right Now Reports If you&#8217;re using a vegetable wash now, listen up. There&#8217;s a new one on the market that takes extra steps to be environmentally friendly. iGozen...

From Green Right Now Reports

If you’re using a vegetable wash now, listen up. There’s a new one on the market that takes extra steps to be environmentally friendly.

iGozen is a wash that you mix yourself in a plastic bottle (theirs or yours), using your water and their proprietary packets of finely ground sea shells. You can remake this solution indefinitely, buying only the iGozen powder packets to mix with your tap water. You’ll be using far less packaging and helping reduce transportation impacts. A box of six packets of iGozen mix is packed into a box that’s virtually the size of a deck of cards, much easier to truck around than pre-mixed one-time use cleaners.

But even better than that, iGozen uses simple chemistry to create a sanitizer that’s kills bacteria and uses no synthetics, dyes or fragrances. It’s so safe, you can soak your fruits and veggies in it.

Take a look at their soak test results:

The action at work here is basic, literally; using the calcium of the seashells, iGozen creates an alkaline solution that unfriendly to many bacteria, including E. coli.

“E.coli cells appear to tolerate a low pH [acidic] better than a high pH [alkaline]. In fact, extended exposure of E.coli cells to a high pH causes cell lysis or a disintegration of the cell by rupture of the cell wall or membrane,” a spokeswoman for the company told us.

This basic solution also helps wash pesticide residues, dirt and contaminants off of fruits and vegetables.

The same principle is at work in the iGozen all-purpose cleaner, which you can use to clean kitchen and bathroom surfaces.

Other cleaning agents also use alkalines like baking soda or hydrogen peroxide as their base agent. So this concept is not new, but using a powder of finely crushed sea shells is unique.

There are three formulations of iGozen: One is geared to clean veggies; one is formulated for rinsing off meats and the third is “Everyday Cleaner.”

These rinses all claim to kill salmonella, E coli and other bacteria, which covers a key concern when cleaning foods and counter tops, according to the iGozen makers.

A caveat: These claims come from the manufacturer. That said, the manufacturer has assured us that they’ve had their product independently tested and those tests showed it eliminated “a host of bacteria.” We hope to see iGozen take the next step and pursue an independent certification, say by Green Seal.

We tested a bottle of Everyday Cleaner to see how it did on mold, sink stains and general counter grime. It cleaned stains from porcelain sinks quite well and appeared to clean kitchen counters as well as our other green cleaners (but who can really tell if those salmonella germs were killed?). This product also made inroads against mold in the shower, which is the acid test (no pun intended) in our household.

When you’re all done with your supply of powder packets, you simply re-order online — a starter kit of with six cleaner packets and a spray bottle and cleaning cloth is $19.95. When you’re done, reuse the bottle and toss the deck of cards-sized box the packets came in into the recycling.

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